They All Hate Modern Football 

I want to see more players taking 40 yard shots, I want to see more attackers taking on an entire field, I want more showboating, I want more rivalries

He's right, everyone is trying pep ball from champions league to Sunday league.

The meta is ever changing, one day there will be a new way to win and everyone will try to shift towards that, and people will talk of how 2010-2024 was peak football because of nostalgia

There aren't anywhere near as many icons anymore because modern football forces them to become more restrained and less expressive.

Portugal tried to close Kvaratskhelia down yesterday. My cynical take is that if a coach has Kvaratskhelia and he dribbles the entire defense and scores, Kvaratskhelia gets the credit. If a coach uses a bunch of endurance athletes to swarm an opponent and win, the coach gets the credit. Sacrificing creative players to win is always going to be a temporary benefit that causes more severe future problems. Ask the Dutch. Hell, ask the Brazilians. One thing that might help would be for refs to go back to sending people off for trying to break the legs of the other team's playmaker.

Sergio Perez catching strays in a Zealandism video is not one I had on my bingo card!

There has been quite a bit of "it was better in my day" from the pundits who played in the 2000s. In 2010s, this was said by the pundits who played in 90's. In the 2000's, it was said by pundits who played in 80's. It was always better when they played.

I don't even think "modern football" or "pepball" or whatever you call it is about scoring perfect goals, it's that old Blanchflower quote, "if we have the ball, they can't score" taken to the limit with a dose of moneyball style analytics that dictate what are the most effective plays, and that's what the team does. And for a good 15 years at this point, you have teams looking like they're playing handball, ball moving sideways for long stretches of time, but because there's no passive play rule and most teams don't have the flair players to make a shot, that's all they do. Pass and pass and pass and try a dribble or through ball. Barcelona was fun to watch because Messi could take a rabbit out of his hat anytime. Later Spain was often just turgid football because so many of the players were there, but the guy who did something special at the end wasn't. I've watched Lopetegui era Porto, who did a pretty good job of moving the ball around against low blocks but often couldn't shoot at goal for shit, and this was a CL quarterfinals team. Now there's teams with far worse players trying to do the same. What could be concerning is that with these highly mechanical systems, even young players with flair and imagination will be worked to become cogs in the sideways passing machine.

Everyone wants to see long shots, until it’s your team who you’re desperate to win. And you hear “Shoot” from the crowd and the players goes to striker and you think “why are you shooting from there” and it goes miles over the bar

Sean Dyche said about this; "I would be limiting Kieran Trippier if I told him to only pass the ball five yards". all our favourite players as kids were expressive, right? Mine was Totti, he was intensely creative and often broke structures to create. Ronaldinho is loved, because he was fun. It's telling that one of the first things Pep did as Barca manager was get rid of Ronaldinho.

I can agree football is less flashy than it used to be in the 2000's. But thats why i still love international football. It isnt quite as refined and chaos is a lot more prevalent than in club football

The trend in modern football reminds me of the trend in modern Hollywood movies, where the goal is just to put out safe, sterile products with the goal of making as much money as possible without bothering about making any cultural impact or impression. Like, I can’t remember a single moment from Man City’s recent 4-peat clinching season, just like I can’t quote a single line or hum a musical theme from Avatar 1/2 or any Marvel phase 4 movie. On the other hand, I remember so many iconic moments from Man United’s disastrous but ultimately trophy-winning season, just like I know of so many terrible but iconic scenes from Madame Webb (despite not even having seen the movie)…

The meta may have shifted away from long intricate dribbles and insane longshots being a common thing, but we still do get intricate passing sequences that are lovely to watch at times, and there are managers who play a more direct style of football aswell as those who just play the slow build up of Pepball.

Checo so bad even Zealand's firing shots at him

I'm really tired of what I call U-turns where the GK passes to the CB, CB to LB, LB to LW, LW to LB, LB to CB, CB to CB, CB to RB, RB to RW, and repeat

Jack Grealish is a prime example of how Guardiola has removed the element of flair from football.

Regarding rule changes to get Football more entertaining... There were two very important rule changes in the 1990's that transformed the game. 1) The 3-points for a win making winning that more important. Now you may see both teams going for the win late in tied matches, just to get those two extra points. That type of game strategy was seldom seen in the 2-point era. 2) That the keeper can't pick the ball up with his hands when receiving the ball from a team mate. That change, first implemented in the World Cup 1994, has made inte possible to press high as teams do nowadays. Before this rule was introduced you could always pass the ball back to the keeper and be safe. It was also used late in matches as a tactic to kill the clock. Very boring indeed. So football has done rule changes to improve the game and both these changes has been a success I think. Going back further in time... about a century ago they changed the offside rule, from three players to two. Also to make the game more entertaining.

Zealand showing his age, Ronaldinho played more on the left flank than the middle

I have not gotten into a Category 1 academy, but I know several coaches in them currently. I've coached for a few years now, and hopefully can carry on and get my A license. I say it because I actually think it's perverse what is going on in academies and in football. The health of football is built on the quality of coaching through academies, and the players they make. And right now, some of the best academies in Europe are killing talent, killing players, and forcing good coaches, good scouts, good players out of the sport. Redknapp recently lamented the influx of 20year old nerds who've never played getting jobs in the game, I am one of those 20 somethings that never played, but I know who he means, and he's right. There has been an influx of "coaches" who force through to their B license in record time, and do so without any understanding of players. They run shit drills from a pdf of Guardiola's sessions from 15 years ago, they copy an outdated Italian methodology from 40 years ago (Thanks De Zerbi) and complain when kids don't turn up. They draw shapes like 3223 on a pamphlet, tell kids to recreate it, and wonder why they get pumped 9-0 on the weekend. "Kids aren't good enough," they say. That young Palmer who demands the ball - it's his fault, stay out wide, don't dribble, don't give the ball away, wait for the wide routine we did for 2 hours on Thursday night to become possible, run it, and you might get the scholarship = talent lost. Nobody shoots, a complete lack of finishers in academies. Nobody knows how to tackle, how to unbalance, accelerate and decelerate, because they spend every session running routines. This makes shit players - shit players makes shit football. Thankfully some academies aren't drinking the cool-aid of the charlatan agents, jumped up scouts, and idiot analysts are trying to sell to clubs. They make talent. Brazil makes talent. But England? man, they need to shape up and kill the cancer that's festering in their academy system.

For me the two Neymar and Lucas Paqueta clips, where they each got booked a yellow card for doing a rainbow flick to get out of the corner are perfect examples for what I really don't want to see in football: Punishment for creative solutions and flashy skill moves. Sure, if you are in front of an empty goal and decide to go on your knees to head in the ball, that's just unnecessary and should be punishment but not simply showing off and letting the enemy players look bad. That's exactly why we love those type of players and if the opposing players get frustrated that's there problem.

That's why I love my team Tottenham,Ange's style is completely gung ho, full attack for 90 minutes

Let's be real, 90+% os all football matches have always been boring. I'm a 34 years old brazilian, have watched world cups since 98, italian seria A since around 2003 and brazilian seria A longer than that. Most of the times, I was deeply bored. Yes, when R9 played, Zidane, Ronaldinho and many others. More than 90% of the matches are full of boring moments and then there's a sudden burst of emotion when someone scores. Football has ALWAYS been like this. I still watch it, seeing one or two good plays and good goals are bizarrely worth all the other boring moments. This sport is weird like that. What bothers me is people pretending that it was so exciting, so thrilling, when reality is that 90's and 00's football was just a bunch of 0x0, 1x0 and, at best, 2x1 matches. But romanticism makes people misremember stuff.

Checo catching strays from Zealand 😭😭😭

100% me and my mates were on about this the other day - nowadays you don’t really get that edge of your seat feeling, that blood and thunder type football - like when we used to watch Brazil Ronaldo, Figo, Zidane, Ronaldinho etc

It's very sad to see football in it's current state but I think it's more of a reflection of society as a whole. There are great young players coming up, but there's something missing. We used to watch football for magical moments. Memorable games tended to stick longer because of the lack of social media that overanalyzes everything. There was a magical vibe in the air every time because life was so raw. The technique of top players was so refined you could literally see the 10s of thousands of hours put into it. The spontaneous, off the cuff, creative & system breaking creativity were encouraged and is now being suppressed. Players had a massive personalities & mentality. There were specialists. Lack of PR media training. Fierce rivalries. Flares banners hooligans all being removed slowly. VAR not allowing us to celebrate without the overlords allowing us. Goal celebrations were loader because everyone used to live in the moment without phones. So many more things that i'm probably forgetting. It's a bit of nostalgia mixed with 95% reality. Football unfortunately has lost most of it's magic.

I must add that tactics in football are cyclical, meaning, there was the time of no-pressing, then came the time of full-pressing, i.e., total football, everyone attacks, everyone defends, then this took a backseat as well for a decade, two or more, and now we're back on this Pep-Guardiola full pressing during 90 minutes types of games, but hear my words: it's going to change again! It's bound to change again. That's the very nature of the sport of football. There will always be someone with a new idea for the game, and on top of that idea, there will be someone with an idea to top that previous idea of the game, and so forth, until the end of times. And the biggest reason it will change? Because there will always be an Ibrahimovic, a Berbatov, Romario, Mourinho, Xabi Alonso and so on. There will always be some person that will impose their game upon the way the game is being played. What do you call Leverkusen's football this past season? It wasn't full-pressing for 90 minutes, sure there were moments of that, but for the most part, Leverkusen were pretty suicidal throughout their season, playing contained, long-balled, possession-less football. Look how many times throughout the season did Leverkusen got a goal in the 90+ minutes of the game, either it being an equalizer or a buzzer-beater victory goal, and that's because they didn't care so much, like a religious zealots, in keeping the ball at their feet at all times. They allowed the game to flow, and they flowed with it, thus fucking with the minds of all their opponents - with the exception of Atalanta. Xabi Alonso's tactics are basically: "the opponent will score, and we will equalize, and then the opponent will score again, and then will turn the game in our favor, while fucking with the heads of our opponents."

As a barca fan our games were very dramatic and high scoring this year , tough year for us but at least we had goals and young players with attacking interest

Guardiola is the antagonist from that Nike ad where all the star Nike athletes team up against his robot ai team (Halaand?)

International soccer has had the same problem for literally decades: Essentially the problem is there's way fewer games than club football, this results in: 1. Way more pressure 2. Way less team chemistry 3. Teams "playing not to lose" rather than "playing to win" You'll notice at the club level the top teams are way more aggressive in attack because they know over the course of ~38 league games that the strategy will pay off. However no one wants to take those chances in the group stage of a major competition & *certainly* not in the knockout stages. *However:* I don't really see a solution to the "boring" soccer you see in international competitions, *increasing* the games in an already congested fixture schedule *seems like an even worse idea*

I think its bandwagon hopping - a few people said it now suddenly everyone's had the exact same opinion for ages. "Boring robotic football" brought the most amount of goals in the prem last season

Clearly the only way to solve this is by creating Football 2

Olds will old

In a non football sense, it's like what can happen in gaming. In Speedrunning, people aim to be as fast as possible, but sometimes there'll be a new trick that makes it so boring and tedious that people will completely stop playing and watching it. Similarly, games like runescape end up where everyone is doing the same thing all the time because it's the optimum way to play, but this can make it boring and tedious.

As you said, it's with all sports... NBA basketball, 3 point shooters became better so it became more of a 3 point contest instead of physical 1 on 1 game it used to be with dominating centers in the 90s and a lot of people hate that, a lot of people hate other aspects of modern day NBA too, but life is life. If a coach finds a way how to ''hack'' a certain sports and it is within rules, that is where it will move, until as you said, somebody else figures out how to break that new system. Only issue is that maybe since now sports are very stats and computer analysis driven - maybe this IS the best way how to play the sport so that could be the issue, maybe anything else than Pep ball or shooting a lot of 3s in NBA is the most optimal way how to win. In NBA they always can abolish the 3 point or move it further out, they have done it in past, with football it is more difficult, it is a more conservative sport where rules do not change that drastically

This does remind me of the two line pass rule in the NHL and it's removal in 2005 to kill the neutral zone trap that was sucking the life out of hockey.

8:02 over a 100 years ago, there was no cross bar, players didn't think to pass the ball, they just dribbed and you could still score a try around 125 years ago

Pretty cool to know Zealand's hobby in history. I'd rather have an evolution that has so sort of front foot football as opposed one that is on the back foot.

I would LOVE to see Zealand create a video on the main channel discussing the "next progression" of tactics that has been emerging for the past few seasons. I think we're already shifting away from the more automated, positional approaches, and we're approaching a blurring of the lines between juego de posicion and relationism. I'd highly encourage a read-through of Jamie Hamilton's works to help understand the alternate approach to Guardiola's and his disciples. The future of tactics is really exciting, and I think many people don't realize that we're already shifting towards a new "meta" style!

everything is so systematic and robotic........ No flair, no charisma, no soul and no passion. I hate modern football too.

The baffling thing I see nowadays is the complete hesitancy to shoot when there is an opportunity to test the goalkeeper.

The way goals were scored in the euros is indeed different. Own goals are the new meta

I don't blame him

Yes, Pep is the most influential manager of all time, people will watch his team's style of play over the years in awe and try to replicate it. That doesnt mean Pep is to blame for managers lack of innovation and their decision to try and copy Pep as a recipe for success.

sad but true. i didn’t get to witness much of the #10 position, but i miss it

You said that players are better now so Pele and Ronaldinho wouldn't be as good, but the opposite is also just as possible. They could also benefit from the status quo of the modern game and become better in certain aspects of the game. While the systems they played in differ from the ones we see today doesn't mean they have no chance of adapting. These players were geniuses of the game, that would count for alot.

I think Ronaldinho would have been just as good as he was back then. Would he have been able to produce as many crazy dribbles and tricks? Maybe not. But he was an elite playmaker, scorer, and free kick taker, and he would have found ways to dominate. Also, as far as I know he played left wing at Barca.

Ah, so they are all turning older then 35 years old.

Messi’s Barca hammered home the importance of efficiency. Top sides can no longer afford to waste possession on speculative shots and low odds take ons

90s 4-4-2 football was - and everyone agrees with this - the best football.

Honestly I feel like the point being made simply isn't true, the rules have been changed to make peps boring football more effective. No more yellows for tactical fouls if advantage is given, to reduce cards for teams like City. Dealing out yellows and reds for simply playing football and accidentally connecting with someone also makes it so that the more defending you have to do even if you're entirely careful while doing so will result in yellows and reds meaning more opportunity for peps boring ass football to break you down. We are living in the reality that rules are being put in place to make sure the relentless grind of a Guardiola team is the best way to play.

Perhaps relying too much on systems and big data is what ruined football, it sucked out the creativity of players, they used to figure out the game with more moments of brilliance and skill. Marcelo Bielsa: "Guardiola did a lot of damage to football"

Unironically profound take you’ve made here. But where you say the euros is exciting, I will raise you to the Copa America this year. Absolute mania, fast-paced end-to-end football with old school passion and desire from all players, coaches and spectators

I know Zealand mentions he doesn't want a lot of rules changes, but one thing that I always remember on this topic is an article I read in the Athletic about Socrates, the Brazil great of the 70s-80s, who said his solution to how to make football more free and open like it used to be was simple - make it 7-a-side. He actually wrote a PhD thesis on the topic. The gaps on the pitch the creative players and dribblers needed got smaller when athleticism started to rise in the 90s-2000s and this problem wasn't going to correct itself, it was only going to get worse, so the solution was to shrink the size of the teams. I don't think this will ever seriously be considered, but I've always found that idea fascinating and wonder if a 7-a-side league could take off at some point with the kinds of players like Ronaldinho or Ozil who don't really have a place in today's game spearheading the league.

their right, we need to all go back to four four fucking two with the CB hoofing it up to the ST at every possible opportunity

Football is not as fun to watch now as it was pre 2010 IMO. I think it's too restrictive now and players don't look like they're particularly having as much fun and being expressive appears to have vanished. We used to celebrate fun platers like Jay Jay and Ronaldinho, we won't see players like that again. Each to their own opinions though, I won't bash others for having a different opinion to me

If you went for a run, you would get to know what outside looks like

Truelly next gen commentary: *Zeeland:* 5:50 " i really don't know how the outside looks like" *Also Zeeland:* 5:56 "i can go and reunite with the grass any time i want to" My boi Zeeland dosen't even know what real grass looks like after 11,000 hrs of FM 😂😂

Just a few days ago in the Euros we saw a defender dribble the ball up through the midfield to send a pinpoint pass up to the attackers to continue the counter attack, football is alive and well people just focus on what they hate

Let's just give these positional managers like Pep a super league and 11 robots to duke it out, since that's clearly what they want. Why bother with pesky players who might have *gasp* some level of self-expression! What's more egregious is that even my local football teams aren't safe from this.

Question: If we're saying athleticism has become much more important on the pitch than it ever was before - then why are we also questioning the FM match engines weight importance for the physical abilities of players?

I think leverkusen has shown that wing backs will be much more important in the near future

Checo catching strays 😂

25-30 years ago I remember being told the sport was suffering an epidemic because it had become too gentle and the players too fragile. Guys would fall down and act as if their body had shattered. No one could play defense any longer and it caused these wretched dribbles where no one could shut it down without getting a card. What I've learned is that once you fall out of love with a sport because it changed, it probably will never win you back. They might turn off all the old fans and the sport may even suffer temporarily. But, the new fans will like whatever the new thing is. Don't hold your breath thinking good times will return because they just won't...not for you at least.

It’s gonna be a 3-4-3 tiki taka revolution with fluid forwards and a revolving midfield that covers the entire pitch

... another side of this is, the modern fan has way more options outside of just watching football. Can the football world convince the modern fan to watch its games day in day out for 10 months of the year? Playing football games, watching football RU-vid shows, not talking banter online etc, we are talking about watching a full 90mins of top level football across the world, does it do enough to grab attention and full entertainment?

While i understand the perspective of letting the game correct itself, historically, rules have always been introduced to make the game more exciting. It just happens at a much slower pace than it does in American sports. Offside rule changes, passing back to the keeper, or even pitch regulations have positively impacted fan enjoyment shows that some slight adjustments to nudge the game in the “right” direction can be really effective

F*ck! I'm impressed! Methods of communication in the Ottoman Empire is seriously interesting.

I think the new thing might be Xabi/Nagelsmann's exploration of narrow, pointed attack. Which, ironically, both often feature two number 10s. They both play 3421, but that's not necessarily the relevant feature of their styles.

Change is not necessarily a continuous progress into something better and better. Elite players from the 2010s, 2000s, 1990s and sometimes even 1980s received since their puberty a very professional coaching and training and scientific nutrition and whatnot. The tiny little differences in "sports science" (if that exists) cannot be so significant as to make todays athletes significantly better than those of the 2000s (and who knows if polution, plastics and the FIFA videogame obsession of many players affect them negatively). And many perceived differences in physicality may be differences in the quality of the pitch (we don't see mud anymore, which was ubiquitous in the 1980s), the ball and the boots.

I would be really interested in your work on the Communication Methods in the Ottoman Empire. Is there a way for me to reacj it?

In Ronaldinhos prime he was playing LW

There is the MLS where there is more chaos, more exciting. But I still enjoy watching Man City because I find it beautiful in a way. Full disclosure I'm a City and a Chicago Fire fan.

Football styles come and go, when someone comes up with a winning counter to The Pep™, that'll become popular

I got interested in football watching Ronaldinho in 2004. I don't think there is anyone now who could interest my son to get interested in football.

I dont know what game are some of you guys watching but ive got the oportunity to watch a lot of the Euros and ive come across some insanely fun games from the most unexcpected teams and later on ive watched Copa América games that are totally different. Football its at a great place right now, and trust me ive started watching football like 2005 and back then it wasnt that much different, even more: back then big teams use to rule the world but nowadays with the help from science and statistics, lower or smaller teams can keep up with the giants and thats fun and interesting.

even at my level in a non league team in england I get shouted at if I switch the ball at the wrong time even if it’s a good, successful pass for playing ‘hollywood balls’ instead of the 5 yard pass. It is boring and I honestly prefer my 5 a side games where there’s actual freedom

I want to cut down the game match to 60mins and then cut down the size of the field to half the size it is now. This will do 2 things faster plays and more technical plays. It should also result in more goals as players gets less tired. Then i would put in a rule that says only 4 back passes before you need to pass it over the half way line otherwise its a penalty. Then i would remove offside completely as its a stupid rule. I would also give both teams 2 timeouts during a match lasting no more then 2 mins each to make tactical changes. 90mins is to long for a match.

strong anti doping will fix this 100%. All the modern tactics are only effective because every footballer these days is running like a motorcycle and dont tire during 90 mins. They dont care about conserving energy. Its clear their training is enhanced with PEDs. Remember that Bayern that every player looked like a bodybuilder in a span of months after joining the club ? Was extremely tactical squad too. PEDs in football is almost ignored by fans and media. Meanwhile top clubs are abusing the F out of it and ruining football. If players need to conserve energy they will have to play smarter, then flair and skill become the focus over fitness.

Rooney is sorta right, but I think the catalyst why Football has become boring is not Pep, though his style is a factor, Pep’s teams actually score goals I look at guys like Southgate who park the bus and literally try not to score for most of the game, and try to physically wear teams down. Or Deschamps who has his guys pass the ball back constantly after opening up an attacking opening, or go for a fruitless cross. And France doesn’t actually score much.

Players and especially coaches are better than they used to be, that’s why

I don't think any team or individual footballer should be expected to care about anything other than winning. I want to see Pep's teams dissect opponents, but I also want to see Atletico grind out wins by counter-attacking teams. The problem for me is that there is this expectation, an entitlement from watchers that teams should play beautiful, incisive, exciting football so everybody tries to play like Pep.

Reminds me of Rockies/Yankees pitcher Adam Ottovino stating that he would strike Babe Ruth out every time. All modern MLB pitchers would. Ruth was drinking beers, eating hot dogs... he wouldn't make a pro roster today without being a different person

The expression shown by a team on the field is a reflection of the creativity of the manager. Pep Guardiola uses a system that is good for his teams. Other managers lack creativity and try to emulate those tactics for very different teams. So, not only does the repetition of a system create boredom, but also the poor compatibility of tactics and team. An example: in the past Premier League season, Burnley tried and failed miserably to implement "expansive" football tactics, and it wasn't very fun to watch. Luton Town used a very different system to be competitive with the qualities of the squad they had. Despite suffering relegation, they actually posed a challenge for most of the teams in the PL, and many people found it entertaining. I don't think it's Pep's tactics that are boring, but the lack of smart creativity on the side of the managers.

5:30 Zealand already thinking of if the Ottoman Empire still existed, what its tean would look like

I think the area where football is getting worse is the top leagues and thats not because of the players or game itself, but because owners largely can do whatever they want. It sucks, there need to be far harsher rules around what clubs can do. It destroys competitiveness

One thing that does need to change is two things 1 - New card system... 2 - Offense should get the advantage on off-side rules etc.

That Chinese cuisine joke got the like

I could never understand what was stopping those guys from the 60s from running more. It's not even a tactical thing, was there no will to run at someone to get the ball back? What were they thinking about just standing there? When I play 5 a side, I just know that running more will likely help my team more. The willingness to run is possibly the most straight forward thing for my brain. So why weren't they running more???

2:04 and most modern football haters feel like to much ”American influence“ is affecting who wins and who doesn’t

Relationism is gonna be the next evolution and that's a lot of fun but it'll blow these pundits minds

Pep ball only works when you have players at a certain level. But we have Brighton, Girona, Bologna and so on who's having success without having the best players on the planet. And now everyone else has to figure how to play against it and the game progresses. That is a 100 times more interesting then Pep ball.

Pep is forced to play boring football because his opposition force him to play boring football. Compare the City game against Luton to the game against Coppenhagen. In one game city play very direct and "unleash" Haaland, in the other City play hundreds of passes until a halfspace run allows them to score a tap in. Pep says: "If you tell me how the opposition defend, I can tell you how we attack." Luton man mark and press high, so heavy rotations, dribbling and direct balls into Haaland are the answer. Coppenhagen defend passively with all players 16m in front of their goal, so they pass to ball to the free man for minutes until they can find a runner who squares the ball. Coaches figured, that defending deep and compact with all players, gives them the best chance of winning points against Pep. This is why he adapts and "kills them with 1000 passes". Years ago, Rene Maric called Pep "the most offensive and the most defensive coach at the same time." If the defensive meta changes, so will Pep's in possession approach.

1:00 there's a different between being better and having the better players

1 day we're all complaining about how Gabriel Jesus has no end product, then the day after we get mad that Haaland (as old school of a striker as you can get) is getting recognition because he's not versatile. 1 day we get mad that Leao hasn't scored in a month, the other that Grealish plays too robotic.

People, just watch the goals from the Copa America 2001, 2004 and 2007 on RU-vid and you will understand that modern soccer is terribly boring compared to then.

In my opinion Vinicius Jr. is the closest a player can be to Ronaldinho without the space that Ronaldinho had. He has mad dribbling skills, he can break a game by himself, and they have to defend him with 2-3 players every time. The problem of every team trying Pepball is that without great players it is really difficult to execute. You create chances in a lot of cases when the players are able to do one-touch passes with precision, and the last pass or second to last pass is into space so even if everything went right until you get to the box that pass demands a lot of skill and ends being too long, too short, not on the right angle, too lobbed... and that's after a couple minutes swinging the ball around. I think it's more frustrating than boring

i do think the 5 subs us a big impact on the running all game style of play, that i wouldnt mind being changed

I agree that things change and that fitness is getting better, but I disagree that players are better. They are more primed for the current meta, but that isn’t necessarily “better.” It is an interesting philosophical question- is progress always improvement? I personally don’t think it is.

Anyone who says football is boring doesn't remember world cup italia 90 or euro 92. You played either a defensive 442 or defensive 532. If they measured a games XG then it would have probably been around 0.01. An average game had more mullets than shots. Football now is fun... except when teams break the rules 115 times obviously.

I don't think Pep should be criticized for other teams trying to play the way his teams do. He is just one manager controlling one team. If other managers are trying to play his way without the applicable talent that Pep has had, it's not going to go quite as well. I also think that if a team playing Pep is just going to park the bus, what do you expect Pep's team to do? Shoot from 40 yards out and give away the ball? No.